


The One That I Love

by delicaterosebud



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Jesse McCree, Established Relationship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Pining, Scion Hanzo Shimada, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-10 10:15:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15947285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delicaterosebud/pseuds/delicaterosebud
Summary: A chance encounter in Rialto gives the fledgling Blackwatch Agent, Jesse McCree, a valuable opportunity to prove himself by gathering intel on one of Overwatch’s greatest enemies: the leader of the Shimada-gumi – and Genji’s murderer.What begins as a fake relationship, however, quickly spirals out of control as the line between truth and deception begins to blur. Jesse slowly comes to realize that he can no longer deny his feelings for a man that he is meant to betray. As the Blackwatch team works on dismantling Hanzo’s empire from the inside-out, Jesse must decide for himself just where his loyalties lie.





	1. Prologue

They stood on the bridge, side by side.

The man, shielded by his ornate umbrella, never turned to face him. He never said a single word, and yet, even from a distance, Jesse could sense the magnitude of his sorrow: a crashing wave, flooding his senses with such speed and intensity that all he could do was stand helpless on the shore, watching the tsunami rush towards him.

Despite the promise of death, Jesse drew closer. 

Closer, until playful undertones of man’s distinct cologne danced at the borders of his memory, evoking images, nostalgic by their very nature, even if Jesse had never seen them for himself. Yuzu trees in summertime, sakura in spring. The vibrant beauty of the seasons, a startling contrast to the man’s silent solemnity.

The words caught in his throat.

Fearing awkwardness, the thought of overstepping his bounds, for a moment, Jesse struggled with the poisonous realization that he could simply walk away. Discarding his duty as a public servant, he could leave the man to his own devices, for good or for ill. 

The idea, having taken root, had already begun to grow. Only Jesse’s sense of justice, his firm belief in the differentiation between good and evil, propelled him forward past the boundary of social etiquette, which could, in many cases, prove more difficult to breach than even the gates of Hell, themselves.

He coughed into his fist. His voice, quaking and meek, failed to rise above the rain.

“Hey, you’re not thinking about jumping off of there, are you?”

He couldn’t say exactly what it was about the man that had given rise to such a morbid thought, and yet, Jesse couldn’t deny its plausibility. There was no clear evidence, and yet he’d seen that look before. That listless expression, staring off into some unforeseen point in the distance, right in front of him and a thousand miles away. That look: watching, waiting, for something intangible to finally signal a change in the air after decades of stagnancy.

Waiting for a hopeless miracle. A reason, any reason, why the world, in its merciless wickedness shouldn’t come to a close, right then and there.

He’d seen that expression in London and Russia. In the gritty streets of Santa Fe, far below the neon lights, the glitz and the glamour of the city. He’d seen it in soldiers, and targets, and the people they called their collateral damage. In mothers, tearing into a mountain of broken bodies, frantically, hopelessly searching for their children’s corpses amongst fire and ash. Jesse couldn’t imagine what was worse: knowing that their child had died… or simply _never_ knowing. 

Not for certain.

It was hell either way - for the broken soldiers, for their targets, for collateral damage - but somehow, Angela managed to bring them back to life. She rose to the challenge to become Mercy itself, in patience and humility. Only she, in the depths of her compassion, could ever hope to piece together someone’s thousand broken fragments and mold them back into a person again, cracked, certainly, but whole, in and of itself.

She would have been able to stop him, this quiet man on the towering bridge, huddled beneath his little umbrella.

But Jesse? Jesse was loud where Mercy was gentle, his boisterousness, easily mistaken as disrespect. He had no right to stand between the border of life and death and call himself a savior. 

Still, though the odds were stacked against him, he wasn’t one to go down without a fight. Mercy wasn’t there, and all this stranger had was him. 

“I don’t mean no offense, or anything - it’s just that you’ve been standing there for _hours_. I, uh… I noticed you on my way to work, a while ago.” When the man didn’t respond, Jesse stumbled, forced and painfully awkward, yet he forced himself onwards, all the same. “You know… if you jump off of here, it won’t be quick. This bridge ain’t high enough to kill you outright. You’ll suffer. It’ll _hurt_ , and… and I know you’ll regret it. All of your problems – they seem bad now, I know they’re overwhelming – but they’re temporary. They can all be solved, even this war with the omnic, but you can’t undo your death. Now, that would be a big loss for all of us, you know?” Jesse said with a kind and comforting smile, “I’m sure you have a lot to offer to the world. Things’ll get better, one day at a time. You’ll see. There are people who care about you.”

“You are mistaken.” 

The man’s voice, cold and clear as ice, reminiscent of black, frostbitten limbs, sent shivers down Jesse’s spine. It haunted him. He sucked in a quick breath that chilled him to the bone, lacing the summer air between them with paralyzing frigidity. 

“What?” he stuttered, taken aback by his coldness, “S-Sorry, I don’t think I caught that right.” 

“I have no remaining allies whose bridges I did not choose to burn of my own volition. I have no one left.”

Wide-eyed, Jesse stilled the compulsive rolling of his cigarillo. Instead, he bit down upon it until his canines pierced through the paper. Black tobacco slipped between his teeth.

“That’s not true.”

He was lying, certainly. Talking shit, just like he always did. He didn’t know the man’s circumstances: whether he was homeless or abused – or the abuser. All he could do, with no training and education, was spit out unappreciated, petty platitudes. 

He hoped the sincerity of his intentions would be enough to turn the tide.

“It’s not true,” Jesse answered, “Because you have _me_.”

The stranger straightened his spine with a sudden rigidity.

“Pardon?”

“You have me. _I_ care. _I_ want you to live.” He extended his hand just as the stranger turned his face, glancing at him over his shoulder. “C’mon. Grab my hand, and let’s get away from here. Let’s… I don’t know – grab a drink and get some food in you. I’ll even buy you a hotel for the night. Okay? Let’s get you warm, and cleaned up, and out of the rain.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. 

By instinct alone, Jesse readied himself to lunge for the stranger if he jumped, but instead, instead, the man stood tall, his hand, on the bridge’s marble balustrade. Standing with perfect balance that remained unwavering, even against the wind. 

“You earnestly believe that I am considering suicide,” he hissed, with both incredulity and contempt. The effortless authority in the stranger’s voice, bold and confident, sent Jesse shirking back, cowering. “Westerners are so presumptuous, so dramatic, always eager to play the role of the hero yet leaping to such morbid conclusions.” 

“’Presumptuous?’” Jesse parroted in sheer disbelief, barely able to articulate his thoughts with his mind, whirling about in a hurricane, “If it ain’t ‘possibly considering suicide,’ then what you call whatever it is that you’re doing? Standing on a bridge, _alone_ , in the rain, for _hours_? Any reasonable person would think you’re up to somethin’.”

The stranger’s eyelids fluttered closed, as the tension melted away from his shoulders. 

“I merely wished for a moment to look upon the river and contemplate my solitude. My silence. How it came to be and how long it shall last.” 

“…Your silence?” 

Venice was a tourist’s city. Even at midnight, even in the rain, it bustled. Couples kissing in the alleyways, shrouded by the warmth of inviting darkness. Laughter echoed through the air. Drunken ramblings, song and dance. 

From the distance, a gondolier’s song revitalized the memories of Italy’s Renaissance.

Jesse stepped forward, drawing closer, ever closer. “What are you talking about? There’s noise all around us.”

“Background noise. It is the mindless, droning hum of insects: silence in its own right. I speak of something more. Something meaningful,” the man explained with a solemn smile that shone brighter than the moonlight, “Many years in the ago, my brother and I stood on this very bridge. He was seven years old, and I was ten - though by my joyless behavior, you would have thought me an old man,” he chuckled, shaking his head, as though casually reprimanding the memory of his younger self, “My brother was always so troublesome: pestering me for coins so that he could throw them into the river and make a wish. He grabbed onto my arm and shook me, begging and pleading, raising his voice, repeating his request time and time again. I gave in, of course. I always did, when it came to him. We threw in our coins and made our wishes. Together.” 

“What was it that you wished for?” 

Though Jesse couldn’t so much as begin to fathom the stranger’s train of thought, he kept the conversation going, regardless, just to keep him engaged. To keep him alive.

“I wished for nothing. I merely… bowed and clapped my hands together, meaninglessly flowing through the motions. I did it for him. Even at such a young age, I already failed to see any point to wishes and fantasy. I rationalized it as maturity, but in truth, I simply lacked imagination. _Individuality_. I was so determined to follow the path set before me, that I never permitted myself to dream. To desire. I wished for nothing. I thought of _nothing_. I was, at that moment, only what I was molded to be. But my brother –” He dared to turn and face him fully, then – a beautiful face and melancholy smile. “He recited his list of wishes aloud, never-ending. A dog, a golden sword, a spaceship, and all the money in the world.”

Dense though Jesse could be, at times, it didn’t take a genius to connect the dots. 

“Did something happen to him?”

“Yes,” the man answered, his eyes, falling closed, “My brother passed away.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He cleared his throat for the third time that minute, though still he felt as though he were choking. “I’m _really_ sorry.”

“It was recent,” the man continued with a strange, morbid tone, calm and quiet, more reluctant acceptance than cacophony of grief, “So recent that I still see him, occasionally, in my dreams, standing in the garden. I chase him through the sunflowers, and he _calls for me_ , but…”

“But?”

“It has come to my attention, as of late, that I am no longer certain whether the voice I hear in my dreams truly belongs to _him_. In the moment, I always believe that it does, but it has come to my realization that every night, the voice _changes_. In one dream, it is deep and groaning. In another, my brother sounds sever years old, all over again – or so I believe. With the passage of time, I… I have forgotten my brother’s voice. I have forgotten his laughter, his joy.” 

“Are you trying to remember it by standing here?”

It was nonsense, though Jesse knew better than to say so aloud, when he, too, knew how it felt to hopelessly chase after ghosts. Sixteen years old and going back to all the places where he and his mother used to visit. When they took down her birthday photo at the local diner, it had felt, to Jesse, as though she had died all over again.

Silence overtook them. Jesse intended to repeat his question, but then the man stroked his little goatee with a gentle hum.

“No. Not quite,” the stranger answered, finally, with a strange sense of amusement. Much to Jesse’s relief, he hadn’t taken offense to their conversation in the slightest. On the contrary, the man seemed more alive now than ever had before, during the short time that they’d spoken. “I was merely immersing myself in memories of happier days.”

“And… you weren’t gonna jump off?” Jesse added on, finally cycling back to the heart of the matter. Though his bluntness was likely unjustified, at that point, he wouldn’t feel comfortable until he had an answer for certain.

The strange man quieted, turning his gaze back over the river and the calm night sky. 

“No.”

Jesse let out a heavy sigh of relief as the tension drained from his body, leaving him breathless. “Good. That’s… That’s good. Look, I’m sorry for jumpin’ to conclusions like that,” he chuckled out of nervousness alone, “But in this day and age, with the war, and everything, you can never be too careful, you know? But I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Are _you_?” the man asked suddenly, catching him by surprise.

“…Me?”

“Your clothing is disheveled,” the man remarked, glancing over his shoulder and gesturing towards Jesse’s torn waiter’s uniform, stained from the wine that a patron had rudely dashed upon him when he’d refused to take her rock-hard, shriveled steak back to the kitchen with yet another complaint that the meat was underdone.

“Oh, this?” he laughed, “This is nothing.” It was only the evidence that he’d lost his latest cover job. The latest out of _many_. “I, uh… just got fired tonight. That’s all,” Jesse half-lied, “Lost it at a customer. It’s not a big deal. I probably would’ve quit, myself, in a few days. The service industry is a warzone. The amount of shit that I have to put up with from stuffy, rich assholes that don’t have to work a single day in their entire lives is –”

It was only at that moment that Jesse took the time to truly look upon the stranger as the man turned to face him once again. His neatly gelled hair, not a single strand out of place, stood pristine, even against the vile forces of rain and humidity. His tailored suit hugged his slender waist and cut a striking figure against the Italian backdrop. It was complemented perfectly by his polished shoes and fine watch, his silk tie and diamond cufflinks. The man had money. That much was clear.

Jesse coughed into his fist, embarrassed. “…No offense.”

“You have not offended me in the slightest,” the man reassured him, “You cannot, when you speak the truth. Money has a morbid tendency of turning men into monsters.”

Jesse smiled back at him with a casual nod in agreement. A long, lingering silence followed, with each man, looking over the other. Jesse, at the little strip of flesh between the man’s cufflink and his leather glove, revealing an ornate tattoo.

And the stranger?

The longer he looked, the more his expression softened, not quite warm – but akin to a single drop of water, trickling down an icicle formed from a thousand-year winter.

“You are now unemployed,” the man said, “And yet you offered to purchase food and drink on my behalf. Do you even have money for a hotel room?”

“W-Well, I would’ve had to go into my savings,” Jesse answered with a well-crafted, spontaneous lie. He couldn’t very well tell the man that he lived off of Overwatch’s coffers.

“I see. Then that was very kind of you. Most kind.” In the first display of uncertainty that he’d ever seen from the man, he turned his gaze down towards his dress shoes, as he shifted his weight from side to side. “…More kindness than I deserve. As such, I would like to return the offer. Money is of no concern to me, and I am currently staying in a penthouse suite, so there is plenty of room, if you would care to spend the night.”

“Hold up,” Jesse interrupted, his eyes, growing wide with eager anticipation. Suddenly, his burdens flew out the window: his reports, his failures, and Reyes’s inevitable anger. “Are you… Are you offerin’ to let me ‘spend the night’… with _you_?”

“I do not understand,” the man said with an innocent tilt of his head, “Is that not what I said?”

Maybe he didn’t get the implication. 

Either way, Jesse could dream. He had to admit that the man before him was something else: dignified and beautiful, if not a little odd – though everybody had their eccentricities. It added character, Jesse rationalized.

“I just wanted to make sure!” Jesse laughed, raising his hands in playful, mock surrender to mask his anxiety, “It’s not every day a nobody like me gets asked to do anything with a guy like you. That’s all.”

The man only smiled in turn, quiet and enigmatic, though it made for the loveliest sight that Jesse had ever seen before. 

“I should say the same. It is rare that I am ever shown such a sincere act of kindness. You would honor me with your company.”

“I’m Jesse, by the way,” he began, as they walked down the streets of Rialto, the summer air, cooled by the gentle drizzle, “I’m, uh… an art student from the States. I came here to paint, but my paintings don’t exactly pay my rent. Let’s just say that while I have the heart and the soul, I definitely don’t have the talent.”

To his credit, that earned Jesse a genuine laugh from the man beside him. For a person so sullen, the stranger’s laughter rung with a deep and vivacious joviality that seemed, to Jesse, to resonate with the force of life itself.

“Oh, but technique can be learned; passion comes from within. That alone shall translate to a sincere beauty within your artwork. You have a good heart, Jesse. Walk with your head held high, knowing that to be true.”

They walked in silence, following the canal all the way through the city. Jesse looked up at the skyline, watching in quiet curiosity as dilapidated buildings morphed into casual storefronts, into polished marble, ornate towers, as they passed into the richest part of the city. 

“Say,” Jesse said, turning his head towards his companion, only for their eyes to meet, “I never did get your name, did I?”

“That you did not. How very rude of me.” The man bowed in apology – though it was more of a quick nod than full prostration. It was an act that Jesse found endlessly charming: pride, even in humility. “I am known as ‘Shimada,’” the man continued with a smile, comely and charming.

It was the kind of smile that inspired Shakespearean sonnets, and yet, to Jesse, that smile, combined with that _name_ , invoked only a sense of horrifying recognition. 

He’d heard that name before.

 _Shimada_.

He’d heard it hundreds and thousands of times, the syllables, dancing off his lips with casual familiarity. It was what he’d called Genji, during the old days when the cyborg couldn’t even walk. Back when he couldn’t trust anyone with even the most minor information about himself. Back when the bitterness overwhelmed him so completely, that didn’t even dare to share his dreams and his desires. Back when he wouldn’t even tell them his first name. 

The only thing that Genji had ever talked about, with burning hatred and pure revulsion as he lay on the operating table, was his _brother_.

The traitor. 

The kinslayer. 

As unpleasant as Genji could be at times, with his scathing remarks and confrontational attitude, Jesse didn’t blame him. He couldn’t, considering everything that the man had endured: his body, torn apart by a living devil, and his mind, haunted by the beast, as well. Genji painted his former kin as a monster – a merciless killer, a psychopath, who deserved to be put down like a dog.

Jesse shook his head. It just didn’t make sense. How could somebody as evil as Genji’s brother look up at him with such gentle fondness? Perhaps it was a common surname. He didn’t know. He couldn’t judge. Not until he learned the truth for himself. Jesse dug down into the depths of his buried memories to find the name that Genji repeated endlessly in his restless sleep, plagued by nightmares. 

“Shimada, huh?” he asked, his voice, trembling, “Is, uh… Is that a last name?”

“It is. The people of my country often refer to new acquaintances by their surnames… though I suppose that, considering the circumstances of our meeting, you and I are rather closer than that. Are we not?” The man's timid chuckle steadily grew in confidence. When their eyes next met, the stranger’s - _Shimada’s_ \- sparkled with life. “You would honor me, my friend," he continued, as bile rose in the back of Jesse's throat, "By addressing me as _Hanzo_.”

Confirming the foulest of his fears, the familiar stranger whom Jesse had known by name all along, the monster, the man, the gentleman, the murderer, who had brutalized Genji and left him for the flies, smiled at him horribly with all the tranquil beauty of the sun and stars, whispering silent promises of danger and opportunity.


	2. Chapter 2

He had that dream again. 

The one that left him breathless, jolting upright like a man possessed. Clinging to his sheets until his knuckles turned white, wringing rivers of sweat from Egyptian cotton. 

He never called it a nightmare – _that would imply a weakness of character_ – even when grown men and women, anyone who wasn’t half as needlessly proud as he was, wouldn’t hesitate to do so.

He never called it a nightmare, and Hanzo never cried. He only reached for Jesse’s hand to anchor him down. It was 3:16 in the morning, again. Jesse would recite the date and time, over and over until the terror bled away from Hanzo’s eyes, leaving nothing but exhaustion in its wake. It was 3:16 in the morning, March 23rd in Hanamura, Japan. It was 3:16 in the morning.

…And Jesse was with him.

Hanzo closed his bloodshot eyes and fell back onto his pillows, letting his dead weight crash down against the memory foam. 

Eyes closed, he would tell Jesse everything, just as he always did.

 _He had that dream again._

The same one every time, chasing Genji through the gardens, watching him drift further and further away from him. 

Always two, four, six steps ahead.

Hanzo couldn’t catch him. How could he? He was just a little boy, so clumsy in his ancestral kimono, ten sizes too big. His grandfather’s robe fell over him in waves, layer upon layer, forty-five pounds of silk and goldwork, swallowing him whole. 

_‘Anija,’_ his brother would call. 

He chased him through the stone garden, past the family crypt, wading through the koi pond, growing older with every step. Growing older, until the little wooden sword in his hand had transformed into his grandfather’s katana – sharp and deadly, glinting dangerously in the firelight of their family dojo. 

He was ten years older, though none the wiser. At the end of it all, he was only a child, unprepared to shoulder the burden that his father had carried for all those years, standing tall, with his head held high in his seemingly infinite wisdom. 

He’d known so little. They had both known so little.

Sword in hand, he hounded his brother through the castle halls, throwing open the doors to the servant’s chambers. When Genji wouldn’t fight, he fled: his blood, trailing behind him in crimson rivulets. When his little brother no longer had the strength to run, he’d hidden in their nursemaid’s closet, as though childhood memories of baby blankets and warm bottles could shield him from Hanzo’s ferocity.

…But Hanzo was the leader of the Shimada-gumi, now. Childhood had come to a close, and his father’s shoes were so big. 

He had so much to do. So much to prove. So many wrongs to set right. 

What more could he have done?

Hanzo had tried to talk to him, he’d bargained, but Genji just wouldn’t listen. 

It was his fault, for bringing the wrath of the clan down upon him.

His fault. 

His fault, _all his fault_. Or maybe it was the elders’, for calling for Genji’s death in the first place, or their father’s, for leaving behind such a _mess_ on his deathbed.

It had to be someone else’s fault. 

It _had to be_ … for whom else could Hanzo blame, then, if not himself?

They filled his head with ancient history. Honor and bloodlines. He’d been brainwashed from the very start - but even so, he should have known better. Now he was paying the price, and Sojiro’s ashes were twisting in their urn, right next to his youngest son’s.

He didn’t even have the honor, the courage, to give his brother’s spirit the comfort of overseeing his cremation. 

Always a coward when he needed to be brave, Hanzo cut his hair to pay his brother recompense, then never so much as whispered his name in the castle again.

Let his spirit rest. Let him be death.

He did what he had to do. The Shimada-gumi were thriving, now, despite the blood on his hands and that emptiness in his heart. But regardless of his honor and his sacrifices, his grandfather’s robe was still so heavy.

Day after day, wearing it never got easier.

_________________________________________________

Sunlight trickled through the blinds, flooding him in warmth and light. Cocooned in snow-white cotton, Jesse tugged his blankets closer and tucked his lover against his chest, holding him tight, stroking his back. Hanzo was such a light sleeper; even the slightest touch had roused him from his slumber, leaving him teetering on the border of the waking world. He grumbled incoherent nonsense, nuzzling against Jesse’s collarbone.

He was tired, surely. Beneath the makeup that he applied every morning, just to put up a front of untouchable beauty, in truth, Hanzo looked just as human as the rest of them: wrinkles, imperfections, dark, heavy bags beneath his eyes, evidence of insomnia. He’d ended up staying awake for most of the night, just as he always did when he dreamt of Genji. Together, he and Jesse had sat in silence, hand in hand, side by side, doing nothing but thanking the heavens above for the knowledge that in this cruel and merciless world, despite their fears, despite their regrets, they were not alone. 

Jesse couldn’t help but smile, now that morning had come. Quietly, he wove his fingers through long, inky strands.

Never in his life would he understand how such a beautiful man, a man who loved him wholly with purity and joy, with innocence and an almost childish naivety, could have ever been capable of such unrepentant evil. 

Drug manufacturing. Weapon smuggling. 

_Fratricide_.

How many lives had Hanzo taken? How many families had he shattered, robbing mothers of their children, slaughtering sisters and brothers?

By all means, he should have hated him… and yet, when Hanzo held him like that, his resolve crumbled like sand between his fingertips. 

“No… Let us lie here for just a moment longer,” Hanzo begged, nearly incoherent in his languid daze, as Jesse dragged himself out of bed, “Stay with me.”

“Sorry, Pumpkin, but we’ve slept in as it is. Time to get up, get a move on. Don’t we have some meeting we’ve got to get to?” 

There was always something on the agenda – for the both of them, now that Jesse had “dropped out of art school” to become a bodyguard to the illustrious oyabun of the Shimada-gumi. 

…On paper, anyway. 

There were the beginnings of whispers. Hanzo Shimada, the most powerful man in Hanamura, had never shown any woman quite as much warmth as he did for the foreigner walking their halls. 

How scandalous.

How _shameful_.

Hanzo had pulled away, after that – at least in public. Gone were Hanzo’s gentle touches, his lingering, wanting gaze. Outside of their nest, their little slice of paradise, Hanzo and Jesse were nothing more than strangers.

Master and bodyguard. 

Of course Hanzo wanted to stay for just a little longer. Of course he did; Jesse didn’t blame him, when their shared bedroom was the only place where Hanzo could shed off his grandfather’s kimono, forget his title, and just… _be_.

Ignoring his rationality, Hanzo only rolled over to Jesse’s side of the bed. Calmed by his scent and the lingering ghosts of his body heat, he closed his eyes and fell back asleep in no time at all. 

Instinctively, Jesse reached for him, eager to stroke his fingers through his hair – but the moment he touched him, he pulled back, as though the spell had been broken. Jesse clenched his fists and turned away, stalking into the master bathroom.

Hanzo’s chambers were one of the few places in Shimada castle that eluded the watchful eye of the security team’s cameras. Despite the risk of danger, in a crime family obsessed with appearances and the meaningless concept of honor, it wouldn’t do for someone to catch the oyabun with his pants down.

Taking a seat on Hanzo’s needlessly ornate toilet, Jesse pulled out the communication device that Moira had designed for the Blackwatch team – something straight out of the spy movies, undetectable by modern firewalls, or networks, or whatever it was that she’d bragged about; Jesse had slept through the details. 

He scrolled through his messages.

Moira’s continuous requests for a semen sample from Hanzo. An update about the mission from Reyes: the information that Jesse had downloaded from Hanzo’s laptop had revealed some possible ties to politicians that required further intensive investigation before a public claim of corruption could ever be made. 

…And from Genji? 

His were the strangest messages of them all.

Request for pictures of all things. His brother, standing in the garden. His brother with his hair down and his face bare, early in the morning. His brother, kissing him under the falling sakura blossoms. 

A part of him was curious to know what Genji even wanted with those photographs, though Jesse knew it was better not to ask. 

Genji wasn’t well. He was sullen and withdrawn at his best, caring only to speak with Angela, in the privacy of her clinic. 

But at his worst? 

Jesse remembered when he’d first returned to base with news that the man with whom he’d spent the night had been none other than Hanzo Shimada. Genji’s back pulled ramrod straight, his eyes, a silent cacophony of barely restrained madness, sparks firing, glowing bright. He dug his metallic fingers into the table so hard that the wood splintered beneath his touch. 

He’d expected rage, – well-deserved, and yet… all that Genji had said, with his voice, soft and breathless, was that he hoped that Hanzo would grow to love him.

It was strange, unspeakably so, considering Genji’s previous thoughts on Hanzo. The man wasn’t allowed to be happy, apparently. He wasn’t allowed to have one pleasant thought of his own considering the torture, the misery, the grief, the pain, the years spent locked in a healing tank, _drowning_ , that Genji had endured at Hanzo’s hand. The years of his life that Genji had been forced to subsist, unable to walk, unable to look down at his own, monstrous body, devoid of humanity, without a sickening mixture of bile and oil rushing up his metallic throat, had surely deprived his brother of the basic right to live. 

And yet, Genji’s only wish when Jesse was ordered to infiltrate the Shimada-gumi was that he wanted him to make his brother happy. To make him feel as though he lived in a dream. Despite his outward calm, however, the cyborg had returned to the training room that evening and carved apart every bot in the base, slamming down his sword into the bent and broken metal until he’d turned their little bodies to scrap.

Genji wasn’t well.

That fact was growing more and more apparent to Jesse by the day. 

‘Have you taken my brother’s virginity?’ Genji’s last message read.

Grunting in disgust, Jesse typed out a rushed, ‘that ain’t your business’ before shutting off his communicator and shoving it back into his pocket, as though removing the device from his direct line of vision could erase from his memory the knowledge of Genji’s obsession with his brother’s sex life.

And oh, he'd taken his virginity, alright. He’d done all of that and more. The things he’d done with Hanzo made him fear the possibility of bursting into flame the second he set foot in church every Sunday. As reserved, as stern, as his lover could seem, he was certainly eager to please. Eager for praise… and for discipline. 

Jesse knew him well enough to know that he was punishing himself. Self-flagellation at its finest.

It made him feel dirty, at times - tugging Hanzo’s hair, _hitting him_ \- and yet somehow, nothing made Jesse feel quite as monstrous as the fact that he held him afterwards: this man, who trusted him unconditionally, who would never see the knife held behind his back until Jesse had driven it between his ribs. Growing despondent, Jesse leaned back and closed his eyes until a sudden knock on the door startled him out of his daze. 

“Jesse?” Hanzo called from the doorway, the calm in his voice, a stark contrast from Genji's seething anger, “Is everything alright? You have been in there for quite some time.”

“Everything’s fine,” he replied through forced, awkward laugher, “I just, uh… I must’ve drifted off for a minute, there. Sorry for hoggin’ the bathroom, Sunshine.”

Pushing himself to his feet, Jesse walked over to the sink and looked over his features in the bathroom mirror. A handsome, well-groomed gentleman stared back at him with unspoken accusations of treachery. Though he’d never before looked so outwardly healthy, beneath it all, Jesse had never felt so wretched. That feeling grew with every passing day: every update from Reyes, informing him that Blackwatch had taken just one more step towards dismantling the Shimada-gumi. Towards erasing the life that he and Hanzo had built for themselves, together.

Though founded on deception, Jesse knew: surely the warmth that he felt for him was real.

…Perhaps he could allow himself to wander, lost in the fantasy, for just a moment longer.

Smiling, Jesse started a bath, adding in all the ridiculous essential oils and medicinal herbs that Hanzo kept stocked in his bathroom closet. He swore by traditional medicine: the kind that had Moira rolling her eyes at the mere mention of such ‘pseudoscience.’ Despite her unrefutable logic, Jesse was more inclined to agree with his lover. Hanzo’s skin, smooth as ivory, dimpled delicately under his touch. Though his was a warrior’s body, muscular and lean, somehow, in many ways, Hanzo was… soft.

At least he was, when he was with him.

As Jesse pushed the door open, inviting his lover inside, he slipped his hands beneath his yukata and slipped the fabric over his shoulders.

___________________________________

He came to him that night, to the balcony upon the highest floor of Shimada Castle.

Hanzo looked beautiful. The warm, spring breeze flowed through his hair and caressed them both as they stood, side by side, looking down at the cliffs leading down towards the forest below. Standing so close in quiet intimacy, their body heat warded off the evening chill.

“So, what did you want to tell me?” Jesse asked, questioning the traditional, paper summons that he’d received from Hanzo that afternoon, after being ousted from the conference room along with everyone else deemed too unimportant to listen in on the oyabun’s personal matters.

Hanzo’s business partner had brought his daughter along, and he was interested, very much so, in “strengthening their alliance.” He'd mentioned as much, multiple times, with an utter lack of subtlety that left even Jesse reeling. Despite the older man's lack of charm, Hanzo must have been interested in what he had to offer. Negotiations had led to dinner, which had led to Jesse, eating frozen food alone in the bodyguard’s breakroom – a common occurrence, as of late. 

Though currently, Jesse only coughed around his cigarillo, burning brightly in the setting darkness, as he struggled to shake off that growing irritation at having been dismissed so easily that afternoon. He couldn't help but ask - 

“Are you breaking up with me?”

Strangely enough, his greatest fear, stemming from that possibility, was not the prospect of facing Reyes’s wrath for having failed yet another mission, but the thought of that encroaching, intolerable _loneliness_ from simply losing Hanzo. Loneliness, whose influence he’d never truly known until he was finally freed from it. 

Until being with Hanzo had taught him that there was so much more that life could offer.

“No!” Hanzo answered in earnest, looking up at him with _hurt_ , clear in his expression – as though it pained him that Jesse would even consider such a prospect, regardless of all the signs that had led up to it. “No. I would never - I love you, Jesse. I love you dearly. I do. And I feel _nothing_ for Hanae, I assure you of that.”

Jesse raised an eyebrow.

“Wasn’t her name ‘Hinako?’” 

“…Was it?” 

Despite the tension and uncertainty in the air, for just a moment, that familiar amicability fell over them once more. Their laughter filled the air, bouncing off the walls and lightening the burden on both of their hearts, even if it had started with a simple desire to ward off the awkwardness that had managed to grow between them in the course of a single evening.

“Oof. You took her to some fancy restaurant, wined and dined her, and you don’t even remember her name. That’s cold, Han.”

“I was merely interested in the contract that her father seemed so eager to present to me,” he explained, pinching that little spot on his nose bridge that he always squeezed when he felt a migraine coming on, “She never so much as caught my eye.”

“And _I_ do?” Jesse asked, spreading his arms, presenting himself in his entirety, “I don’t exactly got movie star looks either.”

“You most certainly do not,” Hanzo teased, patting him gently on the belly. Jesse couldn’t help but smile at his rare display of playfulness. “But your appearance is distinctly… _you_. I find it rather unrefined, admittedly, but you boast your brash fashion choices with such shameless confidence that it almost demands admiration.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a complement or an insult.”

“It is a compliment. One that I offer with my utmost sincerity.”

“Glad to know you still like _somethin’_ about me. …So all this time, I never even had to worry, huh?”

As if in apology, Hanzo took his hands in his, drawing closer still, to hold him gently in the moonlight. “No. Nobody, man or woman, could ever take your place.”

Jesse brushed his lover’s bangs aside, to press a kiss against his forehead.

“Sorry I doubted you. It’s just that… you were gettin’ pretty ‘friendly’ with that woman, there, in the boardroom. You know. Smilin’ at her, laughing, when she… put her hand on your thigh. And when she leaned in to whisper whatever it was she wanted to say in your ear. What was it that you whispered back, by the way?”

“Nothing of significance. Meaningless, generic drivel,” Hanzo answered almost immediately, eager to explain himself.

“I know, I know. It doesn’t mean anything; it never does. It’s just that… you’ve never done any of that with me. Not in public. Knowing you're... _ashamed_ of me like that, it… it stings a little.” 

Hanzo closed his eyes and let out a lingering sigh so low, so despondent, that it seemed to carry the weight of the world itself. He took a single step back, and yet they remained connected, still – Hanzo’s hands, gently cradled in his own. 

“I know - and I apologize: for my reticence and for my cowardice. But mine is a family steeped in tradition. Before I am my own man, I am the oyabun of the Shimada-gumi.” Hanzo took a deep breath in. He straightened his back and stood tall, with his head held high. He looked noble, despite the sadness, the _guilt_ , behind his eyes. “I must hold myself to the highest standards. Honorable are those who know the pain of temperance and sacrifice and never waver from their duties.” 

“Yeah, I know you've got honor - you've got honor to spare. The question is: does giving up everything for that honor make you happy?”

Hanzo's eyes went wide. Frozen, he stared down at the little spot between their feet in cold and dreadful silence – silence that lingered for what felt like hours.

“Han?” Jesse called, leaning in closer with a worried tilt of his head, “Did I go too far? I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to try to guilt trip you, or push you, or –”

“No,” Hanzo said, breaking his silence. With a tender, melancholy smile, he looked up into Jesse’s eyes with love and what could only be described as voluntary vulnerability. “For a moment, you only reminded me of my brother.”

“Of Genji?” 

Jesse could hardly imagine that he and Genji could ever have anything in common.

“Years ago, he asked me precisely that same question. It was the day of his death. His _murder_.” Hanzo’s self-awareness of the situation never ceased to shock him: that he had the strength to call it what it was. “I asked him if it brought him joy to rain dishonor and scandal upon the clan… and all he asked, in return, was whether ruling the Shimada-gumi within the boundaries of my gilded cage, all in the pursuit of honor, had brought happiness to _me_.”

“Did it?” 

“…No. What brought me joy was living together in this castle with my father and brother. What brings me joy, now, is _you_.” Hanzo shook his head, gently chuckling to himself, though with a cold self-loathing, a ruthless mockery, that sent a chill down Jesse’s spine. “Amusing, is it not? The pleasures that I will deny myself in the name of honor. I rob myself of my own happiness.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s funny,” Jesse replied, holding Hanzo’s body flush against his own, until he could feel the tension leeching away from the other man’s body: his muscles loosening, his breaths, growing slower. “I think it’s what you’ve been taught to do, and it’s _sad_. I think you deserve to let yourself be happy, for once in your life – and to hell with what everyone else thinks you should be doin' with your time, instead.”

Closing his eyes, Hanzo laid his cheek against Jesse’s chest with quiet contenment.

“I have always loved that about you. Your courage. Your confidence.” Jesse understood. Though Hanzo had his own brand of pride, his confidence lay only in what others made him out to be: a yakuza boss, a warrior, an heir – but not as his own, independent human being. Of the intricacies of individuality, Hanzo was naïve. “In truth, Jesse… when I first offered you a position amongst my staff, it was with the hopes that I could glean some wisdom from you during our time together. I wanted to be like you, but in the end, I have not changed in the slightest.”

“That’s not true,” Jesse said, “You _have_ changed. Maybe not drastically, but you have. You smile a lot more than you did back then. You’re a little more outspoken. You’ve even gone against the elders a few times, even when you know they’ll give you the stink eye for a week after.”

He seemed to perk up at that revelation: the fact that, during the short time that he’d known Jesse, perhaps he’d found some strength of his very own, to give him the courage to rebel against tradition.

“I have.”

“Yeah, you see? It’s not like you’ll be shamelessly saunterin’ around in spurs and a Stetson overnight. You gotta take baby-steps, Han. Baby-steps.”

“...Perhaps.”

Pulling away, Hanzo reached for his sake gourd: the one that he had emptied and refilled at least three times a day when they first met - but that now, was rarely touched. He took a quick sip before offering it to Jesse. They passed the gourd between them, whittling the time away. As night fell upon them, the distant lights of Hanamura flickered off, one by one, shrouding their little corner of the world in comforting darkness.

“What’re you thinking about?” Jesse asked, taking note of Hanzo’s quiet contemplation.

“What you mentioned earlier, about ‘taking baby-steps.’ I was only pondering if some occasions may be of such great importance that they warrant a more _drastic_ call for change.”

“Oh? What do you mean by that?”

“You will see,” Hanzo answered with a knowing smile, soft and warm, “I… want to prove myself to you, Jesse. I want to prove to you just how much I have grown.”

Though touched by his intentions, Jesse shook his head, rejecting the need for them. 

“You don’t got nothin’ to prove to me.”

He wrapped his arm around Hanzo’s waist and pulled him close, as even the lights of the castle grew dim.


End file.
